Check Your Attitude at the Door: The Power of Positive Intention

Your attitude speaks volumes before you utter a word. Like your shadow, you often are unaware of it. Your attitude permeates everything about you: the way you think, the tone of your voice, what words you choose, and even how you move your body — your body language. While you may think that your thoughts and feelings are purely private, your body is mirroring and in fact is speaking your mind. What you are thinking and feeling gets translated into your body language, and is very much like those electronic signs with a message that flashes, this time across your forehead. Your body language actually has a larger impact on others than the words you speak. Put it all together and you‘ll find your attitude sets the tone for how people respond to you. Everyone has experienced the vibes that come off a person. You take one look and you know whether to approach or stay away. Your attitude is born out of a set of conclusions and decisions you have made about a particular person, situation, or your life. Humans like to be “right” about their thoughts and conclusions. If you have a hostile attitude you will experience hostile events in your life and approach people in a hostile way. When you are in a negative frame of mind you are sending negative signals to others and they will respond to your hostile signals in a negative way. Their response will reinforce your conclusion that the world is a negative place. If you have a cheerful attitude, likewise, you will experience events in your life in a way to support your positive conclusions. Your attitude usually resides in your blind spot because most of the time you are focused on your thoughts, not the attitude they are coming from. Why This Book This book was inspired by a corporate workshop called “Choosing Leadership.” The pilot workshop was a great success and it has been rolled out to several thousands of people around the world in all types of businesses from sales and retail to biotech and pharmaceuticals, from gold mines and engineering and manufacturing plants to government agencies, educators, and students. Many people wanted a way to deepen and reinforce their learning and share the tools they learned in the workshop with colleagues, family and friends, so this book was born. While elements of leadership and drama are presented as the “classical” models for leadership and drama, the intention of this book is for you to create your individualized and personal versions that have direct meaning in your life. It is important to take any model that you learn and personalize it so that it is uniquely yours. Allow the models that you learn in this book and in your life to inspire your creativity so that you can make them fit your own life. In the appendix you will find a synopsis of the developmental background of ideas presented in this book. Check Your Attitude at the Door complements my first book, Daring to Have Real Conversations in Business, published in May 2009 on Amazon. The Real Conversations book focused primarily on the actions you need to take to have meaningful and productive conversations at work. Check Your Attitude at the Door is actually a prequel to that book in that it focuses on increasing your awareness of yourself so that you can make better choices to improve the quality of every facet of your life. When you can intentionally choose your state of mind the world opens up to you in new and exciting ways.

Recognized internationally for his ability to teach, inspire and motivate people, Jim continually leads people to higher levels of capability. Jim's mastery brings businesses and people to a higher level of competence, confidence and productivity. His focus is on optimizing corporate cultures to promote excellence. Jim's organizational development experience spans a breadth and depth in global companies and organizations. Jim experience includes managing reorganizations, strategy and process development, integration of cultures in mergers and acquisitions. He designs and leads leadership training in a multitude of areas including communication, negotiations, conflict resolution, change management, executive presence and presentation skills. His leadership coaching provides a unique synthesis that taps inner strengths and external resources resulting in higher performance and personal satisfaction. His postgraduate work at Baylor Medical School and his doctoral degree in Psychology from the Union Institute clearly demonstrate his ongoing commitment to education, creativity and excellence. Jim has been instrumental in empowering business to make quantum increases in their productivity. He expresses the depth of his understanding of human beings and systems in an elegant practical speaking and teaching style that enlightens and promotes long lasting changes.